There seems to be quite a few books out there that tell the story of a 20 something girl who runs off to Paris. The heroine in these books spends her mornings in cafes eating buttery croissants and her evenings tucked away in her tiny apartment that overlooks the sparkling Eiffel Tower. But the thing is, girls running off to Paris and living this romantic life for a while isn’t all that common. But one of my very best friends is living that life as we speak! Leona just moved to Paris to study culinary and pastry arts at Le Cordon Bleu Paris and I couldn’t be more excited for her. I can’t wait to hear all of her stories about all the delicious food she is learning to make (and eat)… but for now I will just eat vicariously through her. So while Leona is donning her kitchen whites a couple thousand miles away, I decided to do a little baking with one of my favorite European ingredients. I found this recipe for Nutella Lava cookies over at Kirbie’s Cravings. The original recipe is said to result in a gooey, Nutella filled center, but my version didn’t quite have that result. I may have baked mine a minute or two too long, but my taste testers assured me that the recipe was very blog worthy despite its not so lava-like center.

Ingredients: Adapted slightly from: Makes 2 dozen cookies

• 1 cup butter
• 1¼ cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2¼ cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 cup large semi-sweet chocolate chips
• nutella for filling

Preparation

1. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
2. Beat in eggs, one at a time
3. In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients (cocoa powder through baking powder)
4. Slowly add dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just combined
5. Stir in chocolate chips
6. Place tablespoon sized mounds of dough onto a greased cookie sheet and make a slight indent in the center with your thumb
7. Spoon 1/2 teaspoon of Nutella into each indent and cover with an additional teaspoon of dough
8. Repeat with all cookies
9. Bake at 350 for 13-15 minutes (check cookies at 10 minutes if you want the gooey center)